Advanced Scheduler Settings

Event Interval is the rate, in milliseconds, at which
Max services the low-priority queue, which includes redrawing
the screen. The effective rate of redrawing is limited by
the Refresh Interval, but other, less expensive low-priority
events may occur more often. The default value of is 2 ms.

When Overdrive is enabled, Max gives priority to timing and
MIDI processing over screen drawing and user interface tasks such as
responding to mouse clicks. If you are primarily going to be using Max
for MIDI or audio processing, Overdrive should be enabled. If you are
primarily going to be using Jitter, Overdrive should be disabled.
In addition, the debugging features of Max only work if overdrive is
disabled.

Poll Throttle sets the number of high-priority
events processed per by the scheduler at one time. High
priority events include MIDI as well as events generated
by metro and other timing objects. A lower setting
(e.g., 1) means less event clumping, while a higher value
(e.g., 100) will result in less of an event backlog. The
default value is 20 events.

Queue Throttle sets the number of events processed
per servicing of the low priority event queue (Low priority
events include user interface events, graphics operations,
reading files from disk, and other expensive operations that
would otherwise cause timing problems for the scheduler). A
lower setting (e.g. 1) means less event clumping, while a
higher value (e.g. 100) will result in less of an event backlog.
The default value is 10 events.

Redraw Queue Throttle sets the maximum number of patcher
UI update events to process at a time. Lower values can lead
to more processing power being made available to other low-priority
Max processes, and higher values make user interfaces more responsive
(especially for patches in which large numbers of bpatcher
objects are being used). The default value is 1000 events.

Refresh Rate sets the minimum time, in milliseconds,
between updating of the interface. A lower setting (e.g., 5)
means that Max will devote more time to redrawing the screen
and less to responding to user input, while a higher value (e.g., 60)
will mean that the interface is faster and more responsive. The
default value is 33.3 ms.

Scheduler Interval sets the interval, in milliseconds, at which
the low priority thread services the low priority event queue. A lower
setting (e.g. 1) results in greater responsiveness, while a higher
value (e.g. 20) will mean that more time is available for other
applications. The default value is 1 millisecond.

Scheduler slop is the amount of time, in milliseconds, the
scheduler is permitted to fall behind actual time before correcting
the scheduler time to actual time. The scheduler will fall behind
actual time if there are more high priority events than the computer
can process. Typically some amount of slop is desired so that
high priority events will maintain long term temporal accuracy
despite small temporal deviations. A lower setting (e.g., 1) results
in greater short term accuracy, while a higher value (e.g., 100)
will mean that the scheduler is more accurate in the long term.
The default value is 25 milliseconds.

MacBook Retina GUI Redrawing Issues

On a Retina Macbook, if you have a patch that is performing a lot of user interface drawing, such as rapid updates to JSUI, you are possibly backlogging the queue, which can have an effect on scheduler performance. On these machines, GUI rendering costs are roughly 4x expensive, unless you disable high resolution support (patchers will look worse). To turn off high resolution support for Max, go to the Finder, and Get-Info (cmd+i) on the Max application icon and check the "Open in Low Resolution" box.